Though the Syracuse Orange football program didn’t join a conference until the 1990s (the Big East, obviously), they were one of many “Eastern Independents” for a long stretch. And within this group of independents, there was also a smaller group of top programs: the so-called “Big 4” of Syracuse, Penn State, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.
As a group, these teams established eligibility standards and other rules among themselves, while also scheduling each other annually. So despite not being a conference in any official sense, the four schools did perform some of the same functions. They also established a bit of a four-way rivalry, which you can see play out in SU’s own history through the end of the 1980s.